“Dad, you smell bad.”

Though my daughter was a little impolitic, she was definitely right. Last Thursday I was putting gear together for a fatalistic winter attempt on the Upper Sac’s BWO hatch.

The river has fallen to 750 cfs range, which isn’t ideal, but even to an effete, low-modulus dry-fly type, it’s wholly fishable. And I figured the BWOs might be making an appearance (sfx: music — “It’s the most wonderful time of the year“)

So a Friday or Saturday assault on the river was in the plans… right up until what I’ll benignly label The Stomach Flu Of Doom arrived.

At some point very early Friday morning — and several points during the next two days — I found myself crawling to the bathroom so I could abuse our plumbing in the most heinous way possible.

Fever, splitting headache, dehydration, regular cookie tossing… these are the elemental components of my weekend, so when Sunday rolled around, I’d been wearing/sweating the same pajama/fleece/fleece layers for 2.5 days, and yes, it felt like I was growing fur underneath it all.

Which is when Little M piped up.

The germophobes in the Underground’s readership have already fled this post, but I want to assure you this is not some woossie, blow-by-blow (apt language that) whine about getting sick.

No sir.

It’s a whine about not going fishing during one of my rare opportunities to do so.

And yes, I do damn well do expect some pity from my readers. I mean, why else would anyone blog? (Pity in the form of cash donations will be accepted here.)

Certainly, cash is preferable to the alternative, where I rename the Underground “No, Dad’s Not Going Fishing Today Either.”

Still, the river remains in good shape (the water temperature’s hovering at a sluggish 40 degrees), so another attempt may be in the cards, though I’ve got a website to launch and a couple contracts to wrangle.

Still, hope lives (“Hope” remains the single-best, still-unused name for a line of fly rods).

Several feet of snow and freezing weather have basically turned the Dunsmuir/Mt. Shasta area into a giant ice cube (just yesterday I chopped and slid several hundred pounds of ice off the back porch, and this morning I went all WRC down the driveway taking the kids to preschool). But as long as it all doesn’t thaw too quickly, we’ve got the potential for a winter BWO trip.

See you watching the flows, Tom Chandler.

Posted in Underground Entertainment.